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Forge-ing Ahead to Failure

I've been wanting to say something for a while.

Razer really dropped the ball. When the purchase was being finalized everyone was waitign for whatever Razer would do to Make Ouya Great Again (yeah I know, had to do it). The hardware itself was dead in the water. Even if they kept it you have to realize it was probably at the end of it's life due to Android changes every freakin few months.

Then the head honcho, big cheese, alpha dog, man who runs the show has an AMA which is faulty or set up to be that way on purpose. He talked about how he loved the Ouya community and it's passion and all that other good stuff. But during the AMA the Ouya fans were pretty much ignored or got some small questions answered but not the big ones. They continued to try to get answers but it was an AMA filled with problems.

Ouya at least tried a few times to play off that passion. I have to say it truly is one of the most passionate group of people I've been around without all the asshats trying to destroy everything (Only referring to this forum since I don't go to the others and at that time it was probably the only one with some life left in it). Did Razer do anything at all like that? No. Instead people got stonewalled and blocked.

The forum (referring to Razer) already had a history of staff acting more like overlords, deleting posts or ignoring them, etc. People wanted answered and couldn't even be appeased. You could have lied and they might have been appeased for a while. There was someone there who was clearly the face of the Forge project and he ran away from it. Someone would ask questions and they get passive aggressive answers or no answer. How is that how you try to sell a product? Should have had a real product manager who gave a damn about the product and knew how to talk to people. Hell, I would have taken the job. I found out how easy it was to sell the box when I was talking to people. It's STILL one of the better AndroidTV boxes out there but instead we're talking about how Razer let it die.

The disconnect with Team Ouya. What the hell was that all about? We had someone from the Ouya team apologize because stock Android was changed to remove storage. We were told Razer would NOT change stock Android and it was done. Why should Team Ouya have to apologize for it when you're at fault? That's because that same guy who was running the show could only give a passive aggressive answer and disappear again. They deserved better. Without the Ouya there might not have been a Forge or any other AndroidTV box. People waited and waited for Razer to do something. Anything. But look what we got.

Forge was talked about as a successor to the Ouya yet you can't even get the whole catalog over? Huh? What!? If you gave the Ouya guys more of a team I'm sure they could have done everything needed to get it done. The guys behind the scenes had passion for the Ouya project. It's a shame they had to watch what happened to it.

Android is a constantly changing landscape and companies that jump in need to learn that. You could have had a true gaming console expeience with the Forge and then add media which is necessary these days for whatever reason. Shield engages their customers. Amazon is just omnipresent. Razer was nowhere to be found. Easy to see why the other 2 are still going.

Right now Nvidia and Amazon are updating and/or releasing new boxes. This new toy you're working may have the whole catalog of games like the Forge should have or something like that when it launches but who's going to be there if they can expect this kind of treatment in the end. Ouya deserved better than this. The passionate fans of Ouya as it was succinctly put, deserved better than this. Hopefully you at least follow through on the games but it's obvious nothing else will get done. Long ago you could have gotten the Ouya people back on your side but now I don't know if there is anyone here who has faith in Razer. Not that you care.

Killswitch,
I have been interested in television since the the 1970's.
In the 1980's I was part of a project to connect computers to the television for interaction.
Not just AMIGA style but full marketing tool for finding products and services before digital technology
was available.
We had to redesign the display to disconnect mouse and keyboard at boot without getting an error.
We evaluated different touchscreen panels on large screen TVs and broadcast monitors.

We then separate RGB from a composite signal to combine with the computer vector graphics and text.
Then came the PC and raster graphics and later digital television circuits.
In late 1980's I bought PCI TARGA for $3000 that allowed real time capture and combining of text and graphics
on a $1000 BARCO RS-170 broadcast TV monitor.
First video card was NVIDIA for CAD designing on 386 with math co-processor.
Then began with Linux after meeting Linus at DC in 1995.
Added 64 bit CPU and began serious internet experience but video was bandwith hog on dialup.
In TV world I started with Coleco then SEGA Genesis until Dreamcast became last of the internet video game consoles.

In 2012 I saw OUYA and invested in excellent way to learn game development for marketing.
Video was still barrier but at least was back to TV for display.
Then back to Linux with Beagle Bone Black but no interaction or games available.
STEAM started to change that so tried Ubuntu Studio PC back to computer monitor.
Then Forge TV drew me back to games on TV with OSVR demonstrated at CES with VR.

Now in 2017 I am back to no activity in game consoles for marketing but have switched to
ROKU TV for same stuff from the 1980's.

Damn you go way back. So do i though. Remember LOGO? My first computers to work on were the Apple 2 E and C. Had a C at home and E at this learning place I started going to when I was 4. Used to spend hours making turtle (what we called it) do all types of things on the screen.

Anyway...

Education is another field that could have benefited. The whole Reading Rainbow thing became a disaster. We have a few education games out there. It could have been used as a low cost education tool.

I personally spoke to a few companies and about 10 universities/vocational training places to see if the Ouya could get in there.

For me, the OUYA was my idea come to life so was going to back it no matter what. An easy way to put games on TV and get them back from phones. Like Min was saying it was more of a passion project for me. But it was a way to get disenfranchised gamers back too. Tired of the way gaming was going where everything was movies and no games. More frames and less games.

But Razer with all their resources should have pushed OUYA to higher heights and their own Forge as well but they didn't even try. With kids being brought up with games and tech these boxes could have been so much more.

Razer bought a product they didn't care about to support their own product they didn't care about...

Yeah, well said guys. I still have my OUYA under my TV and when I look at it I feel sad. It is safe to say that Team OUYA dropped the ball early on, but learned so many lessons along the way in android gaming on a TV. When Razer bought OUYA I thought they were buying them specifically for those lessons. So, they could have a leg up on the fledgling android TV market. But none of the things learned by OUYA seems to have been put into practice. it seems they only wanted the user base and that was it. But when that user base saw that many of the problems that Team OUYA had with communication were worse. And the hardware may have been better, but still had android issues that the OUYA had already figured out, most of the OUYA faithful lost interest.

The OUYA as an educational game development platform was always something I really think they missed out on. They probably could have gotten government money to help do a project like that. Hell, Google might have helped them with a program like that too.

Lastly, I just don't get the same feeling using the Forge as I did the OUYA. I thought it would be cooler/better, but it was just unimpressive to me. I think the idea of an android micro console can still work if at a good price point per hardware level though. The Switch is using glorified mobile tech inside it.

"My dog barks, some. Mentally you picture my dog, but I have not told you the type o' dog which I have. Perhaps you might even picture Toto... from "The Wizard of Oz." But I can tell you, my dog is all ways with me. ARF!"- Bozie OO Spool

I, OTOH, dig the Forge and think the OUYA itself should have been an AndroidTV device. Either that or it should have made no mention of using Android at all. Something to allow it to have an identity instead of everyone assuming it would run phone games, just on the TV.

But, really, as much of a non-event as the Forge was, so has been AndroidTV devices in general. I like them, the general public apparently has no use for them. I don't blame Razer for deciding not to throw more money at the Forge, what I blame them for is claiming they were going to continue (OUYA) and elevate (BIG PLANS) AndroidTV gaming, and then delivered a bit of the OUYA library and no plans whatsoever.

OUYA console to become doorstop when store server shuts down. But since it seems to be safe so far, we just need a place to collect new (and updated?) OUYA titles.
Have you made your game sideload-able for OUYA hardware? Put it on http://itch.io, then let me know and i'll add it to a collection we can all link to.

I, OTOH, dig the Forge and think the OUYA itself should have been an AndroidTV device. Either that or it should have made no mention of using Android at all. Something to allow it to have an identity instead of everyone assuming it would run phone games, just on the TV.

But, really, as much of a non-event as the Forge was, so has been AndroidTV devices in general. I like them, the general public apparently has no use for them. I don't blame Razer for deciding not to throw more money at the Forge, what I blame them for is claiming they were going to continue (OUYA) and elevate (BIG PLANS) AndroidTV gaming, and then delivered a bit of the OUYA library and no plans whatsoever.

These are all valid points - and I like them but yes, there are plenty of things to blame Razer for... but the disappointing reception of Android TV devices and games in general is not one of them.

At this point, is there anyone left from team Ouya? I remember they hinted at trying to fudge the rest of the ouya library onto Cortex, but I guess that is unlikely. Are there even any more Ouya Publishing games to come?

The only thing Razer doubled down on was making people angry. No one can be blamed for AndroidTVs short comings except Google. But if there was any effort at all then maybe people would talk about the Forge like they do with the Shield or Fire. But whatever...

Look, frankly it was doomed already. I said this in a long post at the time. The Forge TV had already been a failure. Moving Ouya games to it was not going to revive anything. Sure they did a poor and slow job moving the games to it, but as I said, it was never going to help something that was already sunk. It was like a reverse analogy, this time it was the rats jumping onto a sinking ship - soon after, the lot went down. The Forge TV had a number of crucial shortfalls which saw it fail - lack of Netflix etc. It was badly failing anyway, but the Shield TV ended it completely.

Also, the whole thing with the Forge TV having Android TV on it, and then Razer putting Ouya games in their own store on it also - was completely fucking stupid. As I said at the time, what dev in their right mind would develop a game to be put in the local Forge TV Store and not Android TV. Remembering of course that any game that went into Android TV could be played on the Forge TV anyway along with all the other Android TV boxes like the Shield TV. Who on earth would decide nope, not going to put my game on Android TV, I'll put it on the Forge TV store so that only people on an already failed box can access it. Yeah , sure, that was going to fly - like a lead f..g balloon. Lets not also forget that a number of the better games on Ouya, were already on Android TV , sometimes for cheaper.

TL;DR The whole thing never had a chance from the get go

PS. I think the AMA went ok to be honest. I remember starting a thread asking people what questions they wanted to ask in the AMA. Those questions then got asked on the day by myself. So I'm not sure what questions got missed, I think most in the end were asked and answered.

Who on earth would decide nope, not going to put my game on Android TV, I'll put it on the Forge TV store so that only people on an already failed box can access it.

Or small devs who actually want their game to be noticed, don't have an advertising budget and don't require 20,000+ sales just to break even

Also, really, you think a lot of people went "Well I was going to buy a Forge, but I decided to spend $300 extra to get all the same features PLUS NETFLIX! and play all the same games minus the ones on Cortex, so it'll have to be the Shield for me?" Netflix lost all validity to me when they stopped having any selection of 'Net flix in favor of "original programming." And, yes I realise the Shield is more powerful, but what's the point if it's doing all the same things? I've not noticed the Forge struggling with anything I try to do (aside from the things they intentionally blocked, the bastards)

OUYA console to become doorstop when store server shuts down. But since it seems to be safe so far, we just need a place to collect new (and updated?) OUYA titles.
Have you made your game sideload-able for OUYA hardware? Put it on http://itch.io, then let me know and i'll add it to a collection we can all link to.